Finding My Used Car Bill of Sale Form

Like a lot of folks, I’ve had my share of financial difficulties in recent times. I’m fortunate to live in a city where I can manage day-to-day tasks without a car, so I decided to sell off my old clunker to get some much-needed cash. What I didn’t realize was how vital a proper used car bill of sale form was going to be to this process!

I’d only ever owned the one car, and I bought it new. I’d never gone through an owner-to-owner car sale before, so I was in uncharted waters. I did know that handing over my car title was an important part of the transaction, but I didn’t realize there was additional paperwork to take care of. The woman who bought my car, though, was an old hand at car transfers. She let me know just exactly why we needed a used car bill of sale form.

Put simply, a bill of sale is the legally-binding proof that an exchange of money for property happened. This is a really important piece of documentation when you’re dealing with an asset as valuable as an automobile! A proper Bill of Sale Form is necessary for many other auto documentation procedures, like title transfer and registration. You also want to have a bill of sale handy when you’re trying to get insurance for a used car you just bought. Finally, a bill of sale form helps protect the value of the car for the buyer. Full documentation (including bills of sale) establishes a continuous history of ownership on a car, assuring future buyers that it hasn’t been tampered with somewhere in its lifetime.

Fortunately for me and my buyer, it’s not too hard to get your hands on a proper used car bill of sale form, especially considering how important it is. I was hoping that I could get the form we needed online, so my first stop was my state’s DMV website. It turns out there isn’t an official auto bill of sale in our state, but that wasn’t a big problem. A simple search turned up a number of generic forms available for free that would get the job done.

Once I downloaded the Bill of Sale Form , all we had to do was fill out the appropriate information. If you go looking for a bill of sale this way yourself, just make sure that it records the essential figures: Your car’s make and model, year of manufacture, VIN, and the purchase price. We entered all of this data onto our form, signed it, and got it notarized. That put us one step closer to completing our transaction so that my buyer could take proper possession of the car and I could get the money I needed.

As you can see, sorting out a bill of sale when you sell your car isn’t too much of a hassle. Considering how necessary the process is, and how beneficial it can be, (especially to the buyer) I can NOT imagine skipping this step in the course of selling a car.